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Ball Aerospace Wins NASA Earth Sensing Contracts

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via PRNewswire

BOULDER, Colo. , May 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp. has been awarded two NASA contracts that support the
agency's Science Mission Directorate 2007 Instrument Incubator Program (IIP)
in developing Earth science instrument subsystem technologies. Ball will also
participate in a third contract as co-investigators on a study led by the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Ball Aerospace technical manager and systems lead engineer for the CALIPSO
mission, Carl Weimer , was awarded a contract as principal investigator on the
Electronically Steerable Flash Lidar. The contract demonstrates that flash
arrays can be used to profile vegetation canopies from space, designated for
the proposed Deformation, Ecosystem Structure and Dynamics of Ice Mission.

Ball staff consultant, Christian Grund , was awarded a contract as
principal investigator for Development and Demonstration of an Optical
Autocovariance Direct Detection Wind Lidar (OAWL). Operating from a WB-57
aircraft, the program will demonstrate OAWL's viability to fulfill the needs
of a direct detection wind mission, currently projected to measure global
tropospheric wind profiles from Low Earth Orbit in the 2015 timeframe.
According to NASA and NOAA, tropospheric wind measurement is critical to
improve weather forecasts.

On the third winning effort, Ball Aerospace supported a JPL team led by
William Folkner on the Laser Ranging Frequency Stabilization Subsystems for
the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) - II Mission. As
co-investigators, Ball principal engineers, Michelle Stephens and James Leitch
will build and test the opto-mechanical assembly and test the laser
stabilization subsystem.

The NASA IIP provides instrument and instrument subsystem technology
developments to enable the National Research Council's Earth Science decadal
survey mission. The program focuses on technologies that lead to future
flight instruments that are smaller, less resource-intensive, less costly, and
require less time to build. NASA reviewed 71 proposals for this technology
solicitation before awarding 21 contracts.